Surprise: Barack Obama’s Approval Rating Is Higher Than That of Chris Christie

Christie photo by Walter Burns/Obama photo by Pete Souza.Quick, who’s more popular: Barack Obama, America’s endlessly embattled president, or New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who was recently introduced to a crowd that included Paul McCartney as a “true rock star”? According to The Hill, “[v]oters in the Garden State split over Christie's performance, with 46 percent giving him a positive approval rating and 44 percent giving a negative rating.” President Obama’s approval rating, according to a national poll conducted by CNN, is 48 percent. Shocking new research, presented below, suggests that actual approval ratings have no bearing on each man’s reputation in the media.To wit, a sampling of recent characterizations about Christie’s and Obama’s tenures:

Chris Christie, Republican, 46 percent approval rating:

• “Christie is one of the select group of politicians who impresses activists—he won a Tea Party straw poll in October—and wonks.”

• “Governor Christie is making the kind of effective, conservative reforms the American people want—he”s taking on special interests and cutting wasteful government spending.”

• “I’ve yet to find any anti-Christie sentiments. Whether you talk to Tea Partyers, lawmakers, policy wonks or political consultants, it is hard to find anyone who enjoys as much respect and affection as Christie. In part, that is because he combines showmanship with policy chops.”

• “Activists have started a site urging Christie to run for president, and he won the presidential straw poll of the Virginia tea party this month, beating out Sarah Palin and tea party favorite Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)
When Christie went to Connecticut recently, the GOP gubernatorial candidate there, Tom Foley, said, ‘I want to be the Chris Christie of Connecticut.’”

• “But only a year into office, New Jersey governor Chris Christie has also emerged as one of the most popular figures in the Republican Party, a blunt-talking governor who unabashedly attacks unions and Democratic groups, cuts spending, blocks tax increases and runs his relatively liberal state in a conservative mold.”

• “Americans have developed fairly stable opinions of the 44th president by this point that probably are not easily dislodged. In the long term, the way the president gets his numbers up will be to convince the country that he is a good steward of the economy, a view most of his fellow citizens do not hold at the moment.”

• “Obama still fares much better than the political parties, who are dismissed if not despised. But as a candidate and as a new arrival in Washington, he held out the hope that he could inspire a renewed appreciation for the virtues of public life and government. It hasn't happened, which is another reason why Democrats—members of ‘the party of government’—aren’t leaving town singing.”